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Tuesday, 5 May 2015

Al
Shabaab (officially known as Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen [HSM]) is the
formal affiliate of al Qaeda which is currently conducting a prolific terrorist
campaign against Kenya despite suffering a series of major strategic setbacks
in Somalia - its home base and operational headquarters. Nonetheless, its
activities threaten to destabilize the Horn of Africa region. The lethal and
persistent terrorist campaign conducted against Kenya includes several
high-profile attacks such as the 2013 Westgate Mall Attack which killed over 65
people, the June 2014 Lamu attacks which killed over 60 civilians, the 2014
Mandera attacks which killed 64 civilians; and the recent Garissa University
College attack which killed over 147 people. To understand the actions of al
Shabaab, one must understand al Shabaab itself.

To
defeat al Shabaab, one must identify and understand its ideology and thereafter
proceed to defeat its ideology. Prior to identifying its ideology, one must
identify its ideologues and reconcile their ideas with official statements made
by the jihadist group (this topic will be discussed in another post). From the
ideology emanates the strategic objectives of the jihadist organization, which
serves to guide its operational aims and the selection of combat tactics to be
used to achieve specified operational aims.

In
Kenya, there exists a considerable knowledge gap regarding violent Jihad as
relevant authorities, institutions and policy makers have an inadequate
understanding of Islamic terrorism, its ideology, factors that perpetuate it
and most importantly, how to handle and contain it. In short, Kenya does not
understand the war it is fighting; and this partially explains why al Shabaab
has been able to remain operational in Kenya by maintaining its intelligence
units, strengthening its recruitment network and safeguarding its logistical
infrastructure as well as preserving its capacity to conduct attacks that
inflict substantial damage to Kenya.

In
addition, al Shabaab has been able to use Kenya as the ideological base to
create new terror affiliates such as Al Hijra and Al Muhajiroun in
East Africa. It thus stands to reason that the sheer incompetence,
mediocrity and unprofessionalism of Kenyan security forces - and not the inherent
capabilities of al Shabaab; have ensured the success of al Shabaab operations
in Kenya. That is, al Shabaab success is predicated on the inadequacies and
operational deficits of the Kenyan security forces (as clearly exemplified by
the bungled hostage rescue operations in both Westgate Mall and Garissa
University College). This fact has been factored in by jihadist theoreticians
and salafist military strategists who are currently recalibrating the strategic
objectives of al Shabaab with regards to Kenya.

Al Shabaab Strategic Objectives

Validated
intelligence and expert security assessments have shown that al Shabaab intends
to erode Kenya’s territorial integrity and cripple its economic lifeline by
conducting a persistent and increasingly tenacious terror campaign within Kenya
with the calculated intent of creating a full-blown insurgency that would drain
resources, stagnate the national economy as well as create a chronic state of
political instability.

Cognizant
of the ethnic fissures, political factionalism and corruption within Kenya; al
Qaeda military theoreticians (embedded in al Shabaab) have created a
sophisticated strategy that would utilize internal Kenyan dynamics (of
ethno-political factionalism, institutional failures, capacity deficits in the
security sector, political cronyism, unemployment, poor service delivery and
skewed economic development) to create chaos and the eventual fragmentation of
Kenya by turning the government against its citizens (the converse also
applies) with al Shabaab acting as an interested observer who intervenes only
to ensure that the cycle of degradation that has been set in motion
accelerates, as well as deny the government the opportunity to restore
stability and the rule of law.

For
the strategy to succeed, al Shabaab needs to be self-sufficient in terms of
resources and military strength; as well exhibit remarkable ideological
coherence. The strategy borrows heavily from the theoretical works of the most
outstanding contemporary jihadist military strategist, intellectual, historian,
theologian and engineer; Mustafa Setmariam Nasar (popularly known as Abu Musab
al Suri).

Al
Qaeda intends to enter into a conventional conflict in East Africa with a
cohesive, coherent and a durable strategy that can be disseminated and consumed
by the target demographic (mainly the disenfranchised Muslim youth). Hereafter,
the strategy calls on al Shabaab to conduct a gruelling war of attrition
against the Kenyan government instead of acts of terrorism.

Another
strategic objective of al Shabaab is to recruit elite combatants and educated
jihadists who can independently sustain a resilient insurgency against a
numerically and conventionally stronger adversary. The aim of this strategy is
to transmute al Shabaab’s Kenyan affiliate from a hierarchical jihadist
organization vulnerable to external pressures, to decentralized resilient
jihadist groups capable of withstanding overbearing pressures while
simultaneously preserving its innate capabilities for self-preservation and
self-rejuvenation. Moreover, the elite nucleus of fighters would act as
the future strategists and commanders of a regional jihadist insurgency against
the nations of East Africa.

Operational Aims.

In
Kenya, the government conceives patriotism as political alignment with the
agenda of the ruling political regime; and this has created a national
vulnerability that allows al Shabaab to permeate Kenya’s defences.

Despite
numerous reports to the contrary, Al Shabaab still possesses considerable
resources and has also shown remarkable self-sufficiency in terms of
recruitment and finances, partly due to the corruption of the Kenyan security
forces.

Kenya’s
disjointed, disorganized and brutal counter-terrorism strategies have done more
harm than good in terms of defeating Islamism; and it has strengthened the
existing pervasive loathing of the government in Muslim-dominated regions. This
facet coupled with the fact that the government considers these populations to
be unpatriotic do create a fertile ground for Islamist indoctrination and
recruitment. Using a combination of sleek media products and shrewd arguments
concerning government oppression, humiliation, degradation and dispossession of
the Muslim people; al Shabaab has been able to recruit a significant number of
Kenyans into its rank – including several well-educated Muslims. From this pool
of Kenyan recruits, al Shabaab has been able to select the best fighters and
band them into a series of distinct terror cells and combat units which are
then embedded in Kenya. These cells alongside accompanying combat units are to
be instrumental for the following phases of achieving the operational aims of
the group and thus actualizing its strategic objectives.

Strategy of Savagery: Operationalizing the Deep jihad.

The
first phase of the strategy is to attack vital national economic pillars in
order to cripple the government economically as well as induce it to deploy and
concentrate its security forces in these specific areas. Al Shabaab has already
achieved this by conducting a series of attacks at the Coastal region which
have in turn convinced European nations alongside the US (the source nations
for the majority of tourists) to issue travel advisories thus setting in motion
a cascading series of events that have driven the Kenyan tourism sector to the
brink of collapse with its attendant effects of loss of jobs and deterioration
of socioeconomic life in Coastal Kenya. This has also increased the human pool
for recruitment at the Coast.

By
concentrating Kenya’s security forces in specific geographical areas, al
Shabaab spontaneously thins the spread of the security forces at the peripheral
areas and frontier counties of the nation thus providing the terror group with
the opportunity to permeate the national defences, establish bases and conduct
attacks in these regions, that is; Garissa, Wajir, Lamu and Mandera counties.
This is the second phase of the strategy which in turn elicits a reaction from
the government - which sends in its security forces to pacify the region, and
it is here that al Shabaab lets the security forces do the heavy lifting for
them.

The
disorganized security forces - hell-bent on revenge - and lacking actionable
intelligence regarding the terrorists, or a clear and coherent
counter-terrorism strategy; would use brutal and ineffective tactics to
collectively punish the local population thus engendering more loathing and
hatred against the government; and in turn up-scaling the perception of al
Shabaab among the locals who will in turn consider HSM as their liberators and
avengers.

During
this phase of events, government actions would disrupt the socioeconomic life
of the areas being pacified thus leading to an economic slowdown and disruption
of family and clan life as the security agents arrests (and sometimes kill)
suspected terror operatives thereby causing more misery, despair and
disillusionment within the community to an extent that the community will view
the security agents as their enemies, and thus cease cooperating with them. At
this point, the terrorist will entrench themselves deeply in the community as
the government will lack local intelligence regarding their activities. After
entrenchment, the terrorists are thereby expected by their jihadist commanders
to escalate the level of violence to such unmanageable levels that the local population
will accept savagery, brutality and death as the normal way of life; and also
ingrain apathy among the locals towards the government and the rule of law.
Moreover, by converting battlefield into fields of savagery where the
combatants know that death is a second away, the jihadist will be able to
demoralize the national fighting units; and any jihadist battlefield victory
will demoralize the entire nation thus further imperilling the already unstable
regime. (This strategy worked well for the jihadists in Mali where al Qaeda in
the Islamic Maghreb [AQIM] and allied Tuareg militias were able to
rout government forces from over half of Malian territory).

Those
not ready to accept the deteriorated society will have to make a choice between
two alternatives: join the government which has persecuted his co-religionists,
or join the jihadists who promise to stabilize the areas and restore the rule
of Sharia. For those who chose the latter option, they join the jihad, and
those who chose the former option will be castigated by their communities as
traitors and sell-outs. This now sets the stage for the final phase of the deep
jihad.

During
the final phase, the jihadists restore order and normalcy in the fractured
society through their strict interpretation of Sharia; and due to the fear of
the unknown alternatives; they will be able to hold their communities hostage.

By
entrenching themselves in one community, the jihadists can use that community
as a launch pad to infiltrate other adjacent communities in the area; and after
gaining significant influence in several communities, they can pre-empt the
government’s attempts to pacify the region as most community members would not
be too eager to have the government back as their overlords; and within no time
the area will suffer a full-blown insurgency as the government attempts to
regain and pacify the area albeit with constrained success while the areas
outside government control will be declared de-facto lands under the Islamic
Caliphate. From these nexus, Jihad will spread deeper into Kenya and across the
East African region in general.

*************************************************************

This
is the brief overview of the phases of the deep jihad being (or to be) waged in
Kenya and it also shows how the Kenyan government can ironically perpetuate it
as it attempts to contain it.

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